Dreams do come true!
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas with your families. Now as we get close to a new year, Clay and I are dreaming, planning, praying and just waiting to see what God has up his sleeve.
My sweet husband Clay, and I, dreamed about starting a ministry to inspire and help families raise godly children.
Eighteen years later, we are amazed to see what God has done.
So many of you have attended our conferences, worked, prayed with us,read our books, listened to our tapes,supported us financially and helped us build a ministry to countless thousands all over the world.
We feel like we are a part of a movement of families who are literally transforming the face of Christianity and that will indeed bring God's kingdom messages to bear for generations to come.
Many of you are new to my blog, so our ministry may be new to you.
Would you please allow us this one day to tell you about our ministry? Thanks so much for reading our ministry letter!
Once a year, we send out a ministry letter to friends like you to let you know just what we are Whole Heart Ministry are up to.
Our ministry and publishing would never have gotten this far without so many people joining in to help us reach families and moms.
Thanks so much for all of you who have been a part of dream.
If God puts us on your heart, please pray for us and help us reach another generation of parents!
Dear Friends and Whole Heart Partners,
This ministry is now one generation old! We started 18 years ago in 1994, one generation demographically. On January 1, 2013 we embark on our second generation of ministry to parents. We are asking God for one more generation of ministry, and for new Whole Heart Partners to join us for that journey down the backstretch. There is so much more we can do in 18 years, and 2030 is such a nice round year. However, we need your help starting right now! This year. 2013.
Since you’re reading this in the midst of your Christmas mail and seasonal activities, we’ll keep this brief—just a five-minute year-end snapshot of what’s going on at Whole Heart that has us so excited about 2013. In our first 18 years of ministry, we’ve never seen the kinds of opportunities we are seeing right now. Here’s what’s happening.
MOM HEART MINISTRY: OUR HEARTS BEAT FOR MOMS!
Mom Heart is set to explode in 2013. This past year, we launched the new Mom Heart Online (MomHeart.org) with 25 inspirational mom bloggers as authors. That site is getting a total makeover that will include training for group leaders, a social network for moms, a new online store, and more. Sally’s I Take Joy blog for Christian women (ITakeJoy.com) has been growing exponentially—her personal blog has logged over 2.5 million hits. Those numbers are surprising, but God is giving the growth, and it is still growing. On January 8, Thomas Nelson (the world’s largest Christian book publisher) will release Desperate~Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe, Sally and mom blogger Sarah Mae’s new book/ We expect the book to do very well and to drive many more moms to our ministry websites and blogs, so that we can see more moms helped and encouraged.
We have four Mom Heart Conference events coming up in January and February in Colorado, California, Texas, and North Carolina. Sally will encourage moms in a series called “I Take Hope—Moving from Desperate to Destiny.” Because of online marketing and blog chatter about the book release, we’re hoping for a good turnout this year. There is no other conference quite like these inspirational weekend getaways for Christian moms. In May, Sally will be a Keynote speaker for the Teach Them Diligently Conventions in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and our old hometown Nashville, Tennessee.
We are already planning for Mom Heart Leader Intensive Training weekends (“Intensives”) next summer to train moms for ministry, and we hope to begin work on a one-day Mom Heart Mominar concept for churches that a trained Mom Heart leader could present. Finally, we hope to offer a new WholeHearted Learning Workshop weekend in the fall, and are discussing the possibility of a Bring Them Up Family Conference with another mom blogger family.
WHOLE HEART MINISTRIES: WE ARE PRESSING ON WITH BOOKS!
Whole Heart Press is getting its beat back. We are building on our reputation as a trusted creator and publisher of Christian home and parenting books and resources. We released Sally’s book The Mom Walk in June, and Clay’s book Heartfelt Discipline will release in January.
We hope to release several more books in 2013 as we are able to obtain funds for printing. We are also working on ebooks and mobile apps for Mom Heart and Whole Heart. Our legacy books with WaterBrook Press and Apologia Press are all doing well and continue to expand into new audiences.
Our ministry website Whole Heart Online (WholeHeart.org) will undergo a total makeover after the first of the year to become a daily Christian home and parenting blog offering inspirational, biblical, and practical help to parents. The Whole Heart Online Store will also get a makeover to make it easier for parents to shop, and easier for us to reach out to parents internationally.
WHOLE HEART PARTNERS: HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP…
Let me cut to the chase: We are growing as a ministry, but our ministry-generated revenues are not growing fast enough to keep up. We appreciate donations to stay at financial parity as a ministry. We have added more staff (two virtual part-time online editors, and an in-house part-time web-tech assistant), we will be printing more books (new books and reprints, about $5,000 each), and all of our operational costs are increasing (group medical insurance, rent, online services).
We are trusting the Lord, who has been so amazingly faithful, as well as to help fund new ministry initiatives and products, or that dedicated donations might help us reduce it. If you are able to help Whole Heart as we head into 2013, we deeply appreciate your generosity and support. A donor card and response envelope are enclosed for your convenience.
WHOLE HEART PARTNERS: HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP
We are so thankful to God for your partnership in ministry with us. Thank you for sharing our heart for Christian parents and godly homes.
Pray for Clay and me and our family as we seek to be faithful to this ministry.
Attend one of our conferences!
Buy our books and give them to your friends to help encourage them in their role as parents.
Support Whole Heart Ministries financially.
Tell your friends about our ministry so that they can be a part of what we are pursuing as we build faith in the family.
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We appreciate your love, encouraging comments, support, prayers and letters so much. We could not keep this ministry going without so many wonderful friends like you.
May God richly bless you and your precious families!
Clay and Sally Clarkson