Turning down the job I went to college for (aka, an origin story)

I turned down a respected broadcast journalism internship to accept a job at a church I never attended and knew nothing about. 

It’s kind of a crazy story …  but I guess that’s how it goes when you’re following God’s leading.

I was a baby Christian when I turned down the thing I spent my college education working towards and said yes instead to this communications position at a church I didn’t even go to.

Things just seemed to line up and I felt a lot of peace and excitement.

Looking back, it’s kind of crazy to say out loud. But at the time, it just seemed like the next right thing.

And turns out, God used this church to change my life in a million different ways.

Now, first, I didn’t grow up engrossed in church life, so I was kind of skeptical of church-goers and doubted if they were actually engaged in God’s mission or just attending a place to be comfortable and part of a clique.

(Harsh, I know, but remember, I was a baby Christian.) 

So picture this….I finally go to this new church that I had now committed to not just attending, but working at (!). I felt disconnected with the worship, I didn’t know the other people, and I felt a hesitancy about my decision to work there. 

But then…

As I stood during worship, holding my best friend's hand, with tears streaming down my face (not because the Holy Spirit was moving deeply in my heart, more out of "oh my gosh, what did I get myself into"), my eyes are drawn to the front. 

I spotted these two older saints (70s maybe?) standing in the first pew with their hands in the air worshipping Jesus (they were some of the only ones and the music wasn’t exactly bumpin’) and I remember thinking…

“Wow, ok. So you can follow Jesus passionately in your 70s? Ok. Yes. I think I can do this, Lord.”

(I ended up being in small group with that couple a few years later.)

I had no idea what it meant to be engaged in the family of God, but God used this church to show me the immense beauty I was missing out on without the Church.

I learned what it meant to be part of “the family of God” AND part of the "mission of God." Part of the church body and part of the capital C global Church.

God grew my heart for the people in the church and our call to help one another follow Jesus with deepening faith and joy and conviction and assurance and passion.

Here's a brief overview of the 10 years between this and when I started Para:

I worked there for about four years, then we moved to California for two years where we were a part of another body of believers (learned a ton there too - that's for another blog post). I worked in B2B marketing at an analytics consultancy. We moved back to Wisconsin after we had our first baby and I eventually worked in communications for a non-profit ministry in town for a little bit. 

So eventually I decided to stay home with our three boys, with a hope to one day create a company of my own - but wasn’t sure what.

Then some pieces started coming together:

>> When everything shut down in 2020, I saw relationships take hits because of the lack of connection that typically gave affirmation and security to relationships.

>> I saw people walk away from the church after getting out of habit of going, leading to feelings of being unseen by people and God.

>> Friends went through deep dark phases of life, and my desire to fight alongside them to cling to the Lord grew deeper.

>> And then I read Practicing Affirmation by Sam Crabtree

All of that fueled my conviction to show God tangibly to people through words and actions. We're called to encourage, affirm, point to Jesus, remind of truth, pray for, and build others up, especially in the hard and dark seasons of life so we can all better love Jesus and run the races He’s marked out for us.

And I wanted to make it easy for other women to do too.

You don’t have to have all the words or know all the Bible verses to get in the game and be on mission by building others up.

Para Paper Co. is a card company that makes it easier for women to be on mission in their churches by

1 —  paying attention to who the Spirit puts on your mind

2 —  praying for them, especially praying God’s word over them

3 —  sending off gospel-centered affirmation and encouragement to spur them on.

We give you a starting point of what to pray and say, and then you can ask the Spirit to guide you in the rest.

Now, a quick word on classifying encouragement as being on mission…

It’s easy to write it off as some fluffy, girly thing - but it’s much more substantive and important than we tend to think.

Encouragement is about coming alongside our people and building them up by:

💥 reminding them of truth,
💥 pointing them to Jesus,
💥 calling out the lies of the enemy,
💥 listening when they’re hurting,
💥 praying with them and then for them when we’re away from them,
💥affirming the good God has wired in them,
💥 calling out the ways God is working through them.

It's taking seriously our responsibility to build one another up in the Lord.

Being committed to other believers in the local church is vital to our walk with God and our witness to the world - the entire new testament is written with that assumption. 

May we keep taking seriously our responsibility to build one another up so we can enjoy God better together and bring flourishing to the world.