3/21/22 - Spiritual Disciplines for the Workplace: Ines Franklin, Trochia Ministries

As a Christian working woman, you have many roles from your responsibility with family and friends to community and work. How do you connect all that you do with all that you are, and still have your face shine through. It's a challenge, but you are up to it. The, sheWorks4Him podcast at the gathering place to empower Christian working women, to live out their calling at work.

By connecting them to God resources and each other through powerful face stories from other working sisters in Christ.

Martha: Welcome to sheWorks4Him. You've tuned into, sheWorks4Him with your co-host Martha Brandenburg and Nadya Dickson. We are here to connect Christian, working women to God resources and one another.

And we do that in so many different ways with so many different stories that we are able to share. And each one brings us just to that table where. Share with each other, where God is leading us a little bit further along in our journey. And you can go back and listen to old podcasts. You can reconnect to our resources by going to, sheWorks4Him.com or find us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel, where you can actually watch our conversation because you will know as women there's so much more being said without being said.

So thank you for connecting to us on all of these different plans.

Nadya: Thank you, Martha. We've been so encouraged already by just having an amazing panel of women as guests that we've interviewed in the past. And sheWorks4Him and many women from various marketplace roles have shared great examples of how their faith integrates with their work.

But even then some of us find we still struggled to understand how we can walk authentic. To integrate our faith with our work, especially after we've experienced life challenges or previous failures or defeat. Our guest today is going to share practical ways. We can all practice spiritual disciplines and victory in our work.

We're going to Newport beach to speak with Ines Franklin, and that's works with people every day to help them clarify their true identity in Christ and how they can authentically function as believers, wherever they are. She's a speaker, she's a teacher writer and she's a podcast. The host herself of uncharted know, welcome to sheWorks4Him.

Ines Franklin: It's my joy. Thank you so much for having me.

Nadya: Why did you become a follower of

Jesus?

Ines Franklin: I made a mess. How's that made a really, really big mess. And I realized I needed a different way. And so someone else introduced me to Jesus. And as I started to get to know him and read the Bible for the first time, at 40 years old, I saw, oh, there is a different way to live.

And so I decided I wanted to follow Jesus and change the way that I lived with.

Martha: You know that probably a lot of people can really, if you wanted to sum it up, we've done this, you know, we all have made a mess right. On our own. We are a mess, a hot mess, in fact, many of us. So, so as you started that journey and reading the Bible for yourself and growing in your faith, how did your faith impact your vocational work that you were doing?

Ines Franklin: Well, it changed everything. Uh, every. Um, my mess actually happened at work. So it was in the workplace that I entered into an affair with my boss. And so edge just shattered everything, not only my personal social life, but my work environment, everything changed. And so when I gave my life to Jesus, um, he started to change me first.

And as I changed everything around me changed, including my relationships at work. I think people were, uh, in my, in the business, including my clients. I mean, everybody knew what happened. It became well-known. And to watch, I think people watched me transition from deep shame to humility yet victory. Right.

Um, sadness. Yes. But not sure. And that transition kind of gave people permission to say, I ha I've messed up too versus judging. And so it was really interesting to watch my relationships change at work. Can't even the way that I conducted my work with a deeper sense of humility. Because when you do the very thing, you never thought you would do, uh, you know, that really humbles you as then you realize like, okay, I'm not beyond things that I think other people do that I would never do.

I realize now I can do those things too. And so I changed my heart and that.

Martha: You know, that transparency leads to so many other great conversations because so many of us, um, wear a mask or we, you know, we hide behind what's really going in on, on, in our life and having someone be transparent in front of us gives us that, that freedom to be a little bit more vulnerable ourselves.

So what led you then to attend seminary and became begin this full-time vocational ministry.

Ines Franklin: Yeah, that's so crazy. Uh, two years after mind you, I was 40 years old and I read the Bible for the first time. And two years into that journey. I had not read the whole Bible yet. I skipped a few of the minor prophets cause I was bored.

I was so tired of all the negative stuff, but I hadn't read the whole Bible in all honesty, but in one of my prayer time, Uh, let me back up. A friend of mine suggested this idea of reading scripture, writing a prayer and writing whatever came to heart. No, without editing it, just writing it down. So I started in January and I was doing that.

And in March, my prayer came out in a very interesting way. The way that I wrote was had to do with asking God, to cleanse my heart and use me for his purposes and leave me. But the more the prayer kept writing. After I read it, I realized, oh wow, God is telling me that he wants to use me to, to speak, to teach.

And that was sort of a, I didn't edit it because I was told not to. But, um, I left it on my journal and kept doing this all year round told no one about that, but God kept pestering my heart and my mind with this thought all year round. And then. It got confirmed the following year, uh, from outside of me, other people studied to save these things and I realized I need to get myself equipped if this is where God is calling me.

I can't just, I mean, I got to read the Bible. I can't teach the Bible only if I don't know the Bible. So I started this study and obviously by yourself, there's so much we can do, but not enough. And so I joined Bible studies and they were wonderful Bible studies with women, but they studied one book.

Sometimes four quarter or six months or a year and our 66 books. And I was 40 years old. That was going to take way too long. And most of the women weren't doing their homework. And so the conversations I felt like I came all prepared for a deep conversation and they're talking about, you know, going grocery shopping.

So that did not work for me. So, uh, a friend of mine, I was expressing my frustration and he said, you know, you need to go to seminary. And I thought that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I've got a teenage daughter in high school. Uh, I, there's no way I don't have time for that, but again, God, once he plants a seed, he kept going at it.

And so, yeah, I applied for seminary and it was a massive hill to climb because I did not finish my undergraduate degree. And so in order to get into seminary, I had to do a whole bunch of things. First apply under special status. So it took me several years. And in 2008, September, 2008, I started at fuller seminary.

Under quote, special status is what they used to call it. They only accept two students a year under that program. And they put me through a ton of stuff that I had to do first and yeah, there wasn't seminary. And I cried the first day I saw it. I was like, what am I doing here? God, 42 years old. And I'm starting school again.

It makes no sense, but only God. Wow,

Nadya: what a journey. Well, I miss, you know, as you mentioned earlier that, um, God encouraged you to let him rescue for shame. This is something I read in your testimony. And, um, you know, as working Christian women, we deal with all kinds of different types of shame. Maybe we're working too much and not spending enough time with our kids or in our marriage or the other way around we're spending so much time with our family.

We feel like our work is getting neglected and it can go even deeper than that. You know, some of the things that really wound the heart that you went through, how can Christian working women overcome, you know, these feelings of shame or inadequacy that impacts how we show.

Ines Franklin: Yeah. So let me first tackle shame, because if you're in Christ, Jesus, you can not live in shame.

And I say that with boldness and humility, because I did, I lived for nine years in shame, even after I accepted Jesus into my life. And it was a pastor who challenged me and said, You don't believe in grace, if you are living in shame, you're not really believing in the grace. You've been given you're cheapening grace.

And I didn't like that when he said that to me, but I had to really think through that. And so whatever you need to do to square your understanding of grace, uh, and that's really what he challenged me to do. Go back and study grace, go back and come contemplate on what Jesus did for you. Look back at the cross and see what, how he paid for all of you.

That does not mean we don't live with sadness for our choices. So shame and sadness gets often intertwine and we confuse the two. And so shame means I am bad, I've done something bad and therefore I am bad and therefore God is done with me and we should not live in that sense if we are a follower of Jesus, because he did everything to save our lives.

And so, right. And so. Uh, sadness says I've done something bad. I have, I have contributed to the pain of this world. And there's a sadness that comes from that and a compassion for those we hurt and even ourselves, because we've been hurt by others by their choices and, and sadness. I keep, I have sadness still for the choices I made and I go to God every time I feel sad about it.

Right. And I asked him to comfort my heart. Sometimes I have to call a friend because it overwhelms me. And again, I try not to confuse that feeling was changed. Um, anytime I feel shame, I go, you know what? I go, I go to Ephesians. Paul's rambling about who we are in Christ is the passage I go to. And I read slowly over and over again, reminding myself who I am and whose I am to get rid of shame.

But then it expects sadness and inadequate. See is that's. I think we all struggle with that all the time. And I just want to, again, go back to Ephesians one.

Nadya: Thank you so much. And thank you for your transparency. We're going to break, but we'll be back with the. We have a lot more to share with you.

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Martha: Welcome back to, sheWorks4Him where root today, talking with Ines Franklin, and then as you have had such an amazing transformation that God has done in your own life, and yet he allowed you to do this study and to really understand scripture that.

You know, when you're speaking it into us, as we're hearing you talk about shame versus sadness, and there's just so much wisdom there that I know that each one of us is going to have something today to take away. Um, so let's fast forward a little bit. You went to seminary, you cried on your first day, but obviously you made it through, right?

I mean, I can, I can say that that was an accomplished task, right? So tell us then what is inspired you to start? What launch, what you now have as Tolkien ministries?

Ines Franklin: So, two years into seminary, I realized I essentially, I was taking in all this information. It was killing me to have all this information and not sharing it with someone else.

I had no place to put it out. I wasn't speaking anywhere. I had even didn't even know how it was going to get to share this with anyone. But Facebook was starting to become a pretty big. And so I thought I'll just create a little page on Facebook and share some stuff. And then I had a lot of stuff and I thought maybe I'll do a website and a blog.

And, but I didn't want to do a blog by myself. So I, I asked some friends and we joined together. And, uh, I started Trochia ministries as a way to share what I'm learning really. That's all I wanted to do

Martha: and tell us what Trochia stands for, because I think it's meaningful when you have a name like that, that has so much meaning.

Ines Franklin: Thank you. Yeah. And it's Trochia, it sounds like trachea for those who are listening, Tro-Kia, it's one, it's a Greek word found only once in the Bible in Hebrews 12, 13. And it's the word for past. And Hebrews 1213 says make level the path where you feet so that the lane will not be disabled, but rather be healed.

And the writer of Hebrews at that time is trying to make this really huge point. And that is when we live our lives, this to plan and following Jesus, we bring healing to the world, not only ourselves, only, but to the world, to those around us. So the whole point of Trochia. I'm healing. I'm trying to learn.

I want to share what I learned. I want to live out this life faithfully with integrity, so that I experienced healing. And hopefully those who are around me will as well, and then encourage others to do the same that we walk the walk.

Martha: We know. And that is why we have you as a guest on, sheWorks4Him because with our core values of wanting to connect each other to God resources and one another, that's exactly what you've done.

And even you saying, bringing some friends together to do it, that heart of collaboration is really what the world needs and what a great way for you to model that thing.

Ines Franklin: Thank you.

Nadya: Thank you. Thank you, Ines. And, um, as we're talking about bringing healing to the world, We spend most of our waking hours at work or building our careers.

So knowing that our listeners are Christian working women and trying to know how to walk this out and function in these things, how can we best be empowered to be the largest force for impact for the kingdom. Right, right, right. Where we are.

Ines Franklin: I love that. So I think that keeping God at the center is the key.

I certainly didn't do that for half my life. Right. God was over there on the. Um, but putting God in the center. And one of the ways to do that in my mind is through spiritual disciplines, spiritual disciplines are not about gaining favor with God or gaining our salvation. They're not asked to gain points with God, the ways for us to open our hearts for God's transformation.

And what's interesting is we can do them anywhere, including work. And so I think about the many things I could have been doing. If I had been a follower of Jesus and my work to keep me from making some of the big mistakes. Uh, one of them was accountability, allowing others to speak into my life, being open to somebody at work, right?

Because we can't have accountability, people at home and friends, even at church and then go to work and do whatever we want, but truly choosing someone at work who has our values and say, would you hold me accountable? That I live out my faith here as well as I do. And I try to do elsewhere in my life.

Uh, another thing we can do is we can be. We can be ministers, right? Ambassadors as Paul says of the good news of Jesus Christ, but we can do so with, um, our heart of humility. So perhaps sharing, encouraging Bible verses with others, being a good Bible students so that we have these passages in our heart ready when we are dealing with situations at work.

And we might encourage someone with the word of. Um, and then the last,

Martha: let me camp, let me camp on that one just for a minute, before you go onto the last one, because what does that look like? So you went to seminary, so you, you know,

you paid

and you invested a lot of time to get God's word in your heart and to really understand it.

And I'm way more than, than most of us are going to do. So what does that look like practically for a Christian working with. To, um, to take the F or make the effort to hide God's word in their heart. Morphing.

Ines Franklin: Just, I love that. I love, I liked the like show me. Yes. Okay. So, uh, one of the great things that we have available to us is the Bible app, which allows us to on the way to work, listen to scripture, you can sign up for, um, a Bible reading plan.

And in 15 minutes you have listened to a good chunk of the board of. Um, and you, whatever you like, you can listen to it again. And by the time you get to work, you've put that in your heart. And it's amazing how God will use those very passages during your day. And you can do that on the way home to kind of reset your heart again.

Right. Um, so that's one way to intake the word of God, also podcasts, right? There's last wonderful podcasts that are incorrect. I use an app called Lectio 365, which is a kind of like a spiritual practice early in the morning while I'm putting on my makeup. I listened to the word of God and I breathe in God's word in my heart.

And then when I go to sleep, I stick it by my bedside. And it also has another few 15 minutes of God's word into my heart. So just intaking, just it's the constant intaking repetition of having that word in to your mind. We'll it'll come out. It will come out. You don't have to like try to memorize it.

I've never tried to memorize God's word ever. I just listened to it and let it just bathe over me. Even if at the moment, I don't understand what it's saying and God will pull that out at the right time. I believe it.

Martha: So why don't you go ahead and tell us the third one then that you were going to share.

Thank you for taking that little, a side path with me.

Ines Franklin: Not a problem. Uh, there's so many other ones, but I I'll pick this sentiment. Um, because. At work when I'm making decisions all the time, lots and lots of issues. And we're dealing with a great deal of stress. Often our values as Christians will be challenged and discernment it.

Isn't just about making the decisions. The sermon is about being wise with what we know so that we can, we can make a decision that is in line with. And to me, the sermon is to open ourselves, to listen to God so that he will tell us what's the right thing to do. The holy spirit we're told in scripture is what's.

He is the one who helps us with good decision making. So the way that I would practice that is, again, this is just posture, spending time in God's presence, just listening, whether you're listening to God's word or. Okay. Um, I'm having a big decision to make. I got to go. I'm going to run to the bathroom, sit in a stall quietly and just God, I need to, I need to hear your voice.

I have this decision to make. Would you speak to me God? And sometimes we may hear nothing, but just that our very posture of God, I am opening this to you. Yeah, we, when we'd go to deal with that situation, I'm telling you we're going to go there differently. Even if we've heard zip from God at the moment we ask, hide yourself in the closet, go outside, take a walk, take some deep breaths and say, God, I'm listening to you.

Help me make a decision with you in mind.

Nadya: I love that as, and that is very practical because we know there are so many different relational dynamics that we work with, you know, different personality types and different. Issues that may arise in, um, maybe a competitive workspace. And so just to be still and be anxious for nothing but cast our cares on him.

This knowing that we can do that. And pause, um, gives that helps our emotional intelligence at work. Right. And D so it is very practical. Well, um, you are listening to, sheWorks4Him. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk more about how spiritual distress. Lay out in practical ways in

your workspace.

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Martha: Welcome back to sheWorks4Him. Podcasts with your co-host Nadya Dickson and Martha Brangenberg. I am guessing that each one of you is going okay.

That was three amazing spiritual disciplines that Ines shared with us. And we have talked her into sharing some more, um, first and as I want you to talk about, you know, cause we're going to talk about, again, some more practical ways to apply these in our workspace as Christian working women. But these come from a resource that we want to make sure that the listeners know, uh, although you probably could have come up with them yourself, you have a guide.

Tell us a little bit about.

Ines Franklin: Yes. So in seminary, I bought a gazillion books and read a lot of books. It's just what you do when you seminary. And most of them books, nobody would read again, because there was so hard, but this one is a gem and I go to it all the time. It's all. And this is called spiritual disciplines.

Handbook is written by Adele Albert Calhoun, and she has about three pages per discipline. Very simple. She explains that she gives practical ways to use it. Um, and there's tons of them here and they are fabulous. And so you can start the day and go, I'm going to practice this one today. You don't have to practice all of them all the time.

Uh, and so let me give you a couple more. So for example, uh, oh, and this one, this one comes in handy when you're at work and that is controlling the time. Right. Yeah. He says, James says, right, the tongue set things on fire and it does, especially at work. If so. Oh my goodness. You know, they always, we have all these fun little statements about the water cooler and the things that happen.

And there's always opportunity to enter into a conversation. That's either going to turn into gossip or slander. And so waking up in that morning and. No, God, I can't control this tongue game. Makes it clear. I need your help to do so. I need your alarm to show in my head when I start saying things or engaging in conversations that are going to be harmful to my heart and harmful to others.

And that is actually a spiritual discipline. Again is not about earning points with God or being all religious or anything. It's just saying I'm going to open up my hearts for God to do a transformation. That's what spiritual practices are. They. They're posturing things that we do to allow God to transform us from the inside out, you know?

Martha: And it makes me think that they really, although you were saying, like in practice one focus on one for the day, but honestly, if you start to build them on each other, the first thing I thought of when you said that was going back to accountability. If I have accountability in my workplace, in it set in place.

And established, then it is easier to control the tongue because I have somebody that's going to call me out. I've given them permission right. To, to make, to hold me to that higher standard. So they really can play together once they build on each other. And once you are able to practice them in your life.

Okay. So give us one more. Okay.

Ines Franklin: Oh, okay. One more. I'll say fast. Um, now again, fasting is one of those loaded terms because people think, oh, fastening a food. I can't do that. Am I, did I have that ache? Or that here's the simple definition of fasting. And I love this saying no to yourself. So you can say yes to God.

So, and there are many ways in which we can say no to ourselves. We tend to say yes to ourselves all the time. But saying no to ourselves in some area of our lives, whether it's in food, which of course is the most visceral because we feel it within a couple hours. Boom. Right. We have to feel the sense of the need to say yes to ourselves in order to say no to ourselves.

So we can say yes to God and we can, we can do that at work. And the reason why fasting is so important as a spiritual discipline is when we're at work and a situation, again, pulls us to need something by itself. Let's say someone. Does something that gets in the way of our project or a progress or, you know, an employee does something terrible.

Our need to take care of ourselves is going to be really high. And we're going to want to do things saying yes to ourselves. And sometimes in that self care, I'll call it self care. Sometimes it comes from the right. Uh, comes out of broken S and we end up self caring by harming others saying no to ourselves learning and having a practice of saying no to ourselves will give us pause before we act with revenge competition.

Again, slander gossip. Any kind of, um, action that actually brings harm, which we later regret, right? Because how often do we act out of just a new emotional impulse and then we go, oh, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. Well, fasting teaches us to say no to ourselves over time. And again, at work you can fast in a million different ways, not just in food, obviously that's an easy.

Um, you can fast from, um, you know, even taking a break, I'm going to take a break today, not to feed myself, but I'm going to go spend time reading God's word instead.

Nadya: Oh goodness. You know, and I remember going through a discipline, um, last year, at the beginning of the year, I fasted words. There were certain words that I did not want to use anymore.

And I fasted from using them and I would catch myself. And I think the recurring theme I hear is. Being, you know, walking practically in spiritual disciplines is about discipline. It's about pausing and relinquishing your right to the Lord and just hearing what he has to say about a matter. So what about your own personal life verse right now?

What is encouraging you at this moment?

Ines Franklin: So I actually, this year, uh, my passage, it's very strange and it's going to come. It came from first kings 19:13. What God says to Elijah, what are you doing? And Elijah was very frustrated and disappointed and he was looking to kind of end his life because things were so bad and God makes it really clear to him.

Elijah, the world doesn't have to change. Even God doesn't have to change Elijah. You're the one who has to change. It was the largest mindset that needed to change. And I feel I'm, God's telling me today this year that there's some, there's a mindset I need to change. And so, um, in a way that I, I see it is in the work that I do, um, is so easy to get caught up on.

Numbers, how many people are following? Is there a, is there a fruitfulness? And I, I obsess over is everything that I'm doing actually producing good fruit. Should I be doing something else instead? And that comes from a good place, but sometimes it can get twisted and, and God's trying to change my heart to really trust him with the end product instead of.

Me driving that. So he's saying, what are you doing during that stop going to that place where you're measuring things on the ultimate one who decides what's going to not trust me. That is so.

Nadya: And as thank you so much for being with us today. Um, all of your years of prayer and fasting and studying has blessed us tremendously right now.

And I can tell you that I see fruit. I see your fruit on other people's trees. Um, thank you for being with us today as sheWorks4Him.

Martha: Yes. Thank you so much. And you've been listening to, sheWorks4Him with your host, Martha Brandenburg and Nadya at Dickson we're Christian, working women, helping other Christian working women to live out their calling at work.

As sheWorks4Him

as Christian women, we have many roles from daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother to analyst, accountant, executive or educator. Is it possible to balance our roles at work and home in a way that honors God? The answer is yes. And our new book, sheWorks4Him will help show you.

Written to celebrate, encourage and equip women in the workforce. sheWorks4Him. Discusses the diverse experiences of today's Christian working woman. Pick up a copy by going to, I work for him.com/bookstore. You've been listening to the, sheWorks4Him podcast with your host, Catherine Gates, Nadya Dickson, and Martha Brangenberg.

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