After reading The Externally Focused Church years ago, Toni was so challenged by the concepts it presented she began an outreach ministry at her church as a volunteer leader. That experience is the basis for her upcoming book. Today, Toni is employed as a full time staff member of Princeton Alliance Church where her church outreach journey continues.
In the past, she served as a contributing writer at Circles of Faith and a guest poster on God Sized Dreams, and for the past several years she has been a regular contributor of devotionals to The Quiet Hour. Some of her devotionals have also appeared on christiandevotions.us.
Toni has over a decade of experience in commercial writing, and taught Writing for Radio/TV at a local community college for five years. Because of that, Toni is as comfortable in front of a microphone as she is behind a keyboard which is where she has spent much time writing the book and her blog, Lakeside Lessons, which shares eternal perspective in everyday experiences. In addition to the many volunteers serving during special outreach events, she has recruited and trained a small army of approximately 100 volunteers who serve in a variety of capacities on a weekly or monthly basis throughout the ministry. In 2012, she received Mercer County’s Woman of Achievement Award for her outreach work.
Despite all that experience, she is most comfortable walking alongside others as God leads.
After the publication of her book, Toni’s future plans include creating an online companion course, seminars, and even retreats for pastors and church leaders to help them grow their own local church outreach ministry.
Jesus Has Left The Building:
The Nitty-Gritty of Creative Church Outreach
Jesus Has Left the Building takes the time-consuming guesswork out of church outreach planning. Step-by-step Nitty-Gritty details and fine-tuning tips ensure that you won’t have to reinvent the wheel in outreach efforts.
Twelve events are outlined with specifics, plus leadership tips for volunteer team building and follow-up discipleship necessities. This book equips church leaders for their primary mission to generously share Jesus with people and meet physical needs through the practical goals of saving time, money, and volunteer effort.
Many of us struggle to know who we are and whose we are. So I’m sure you’ll appreciate, and perhaps even identify with, the stories of triumph over trials that threaten our identity. Here’s a sneak peek into my story…
Matthew 10:39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Loss isn’t something we strive for. No one wakes up thinking, “Lord, I’d like to experience loss today through death, divorce, illness, or maybe just some unemployment.” You’d be called crazy if you did. Self-preservation says avoid loss at all costs. It hurts to lose!
Dictionary.com defines loss as “Detriment, disadvantage, or deprivation from failure to keep, have, or get.” Yeah, sign me up for some of that … or not. Definitely not. Yet, I’ve discovered that while I don’t long for loss, God brings
life out of it. He does it in incomprehensible ways. Ways I couldn’t see when I was in the midst of pain. Ways that somehow add rather than subtract. Multiply rather than divide.
I’ve experienced quite a bit of loss. My parents divorced when I was 17. I had an abortion at 18. My mom died when I was 25. The company where I had worked most of my adult life closed when I was 41. I was divorced at 49. I was forced to sell my home of 28 years when I was 53. I had cancer at 56…and again at 57.
But this is not a story of detriment, disadvantage or deprivation. It is a story of determination, discovery, and even delight. It is what happens when one’s identity goes from being lost in the midst of life to being found in the Giver of life.