Category: Coffee Talk

Be Open

After entering the year with the word “Overcome” in my heart, I celebrated turning the BIG 4-0! I decided that I would live my #BestLifeAt40. I traveled for a speaking engagement, started an Executive Director class, went on a personal retreat, and attended the first class of my doctorate program. Somewhere in the first few weeks of the year, God started whispering to my spirit, “Be Open.” What started as a sensing, led to a question, “Be open to what?” Within a month, my husband started talking about an opportunity for shifting his job. A great opportunity for him. An invitation from God to me, any opportunity to answer his whisper, even when I didn’t know the response to my question. One conversation led to another, and within a matter of days, my husband had accepted a new job. The past few months have been like a tornado for our family. Not nearly as damaging, but unexpected, Yes. A change and conflict in tempers, Yes. Instability, absolutely. Strong rotations and violent winds, without a doubt. Now it is official. The storm has passed, and the three of us have landed in our new home in Madison, Alabama. On our first night together, my husband lay next to me, squeezed my hand, looked with a glance and said, “We survived it.”

We are not residents of Alabama!

This is the start of many new things for my family. I had never been to the state of Alabama before I visited to find us a new home. I had no reason to come. I didn’t think I would ever live anywhere more southern than South Carolina, but here we are. This is our first time not living on the east coast. I actually have to think about time zone changes when talking to most of my family and friends. We have landed and this is home for now. I don’t know what God is doing, but the wind tells me that this is about more than my husband and his job. I’m open. I’m here.

What is God asking you to “Be Open” to in this season?

Special Announcement: A Sojourner’s Truth Podcast!

Friends,

 

In honor of the release of my upcoming book, A Sojourner’s Truth: Choosing Freedom and Courage in a Divided World, I have launched A Sojourner’s Truth Podcast: Conversations for a Changing Culture!

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The introduction episode is up, and I’m announcing my first guest on tomorrow!

 

Here’s a transcript of my introduction episode which you can listen to live now!

 

Subscribe to the podcast:  iTunes, Spotify, YouTube and SoundCloud.

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Welcome to a Sojourners Truth podcast, conversations for changing culture. I’m your host, Natasha Sistrunk Robinson, and I’m glad you’re joining us for Season One, where the theme is: Our Stories.

 

Hello, Beautiful People!

 

I cannot believe that this is the first podcast of A Sojourner’s Truth podcast!

 

I have been wanting to do this for a long time and I am excited to share it with you. This is the place where we’re going to have conversations about our changing culture.

 

I’m Natasha Sistrunk Robinson and when I’m personally asked, I like to introduce myself as a black girl from Orangeburg South Carolina. Professionally, I am a writer. In this point, I’ve published one book, Mentor for Life and its accompanying leadership training manual; and a Bible study, Hope for Us on the Nicene Creed.

 

I speak professionally across the country and sometimes internationally. I’m a consultant often helping people and organizations with leadership, mentoring, and diversity training, specifically concerning cultural awareness.

 

I also have a nonprofit, Leadership LINKS, Inc. in the state of North Carolina where I currently reside. I will be sharing more about that later in the series, but today in this introductory episode, I want to share my heart and passion for the podcast.

 

I’m sharing why I’m doing it, what you can expect to get out of it, and all the fun we are going to have! I love people! I’m a relational person. I love people watching. I like to understand how people think, and why we think and do the things that we do.

 

My desire for this podcast is that we have honest conversations and learn how to listen well. I want us to ask good questions in those conversations so we can all grow and become better together.

 

I’m also using this season of the podcast to introduce and walk you through my upcoming book, A Sojourner’s Truth: Choosing Freedom and Courage in a Divided World. It is the most intimate and the most intimidating thing that I’ve ever written, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to write it but God kept bringing me back to the contents of the book, and the message he wanted to communicate through it.

 

So, this is my story. It is my truth. It is the way we will center our conversation and the focus for this season’s podcast.

 

There is power in bringing our untold stories to light. The freedom to speak about the reality of suffering and death results in a freedom from denial.

Richard A. Horley

 

READ ALONG: Natasha reads excerpts from the book’s introduction ending with the words, “The first person each of us must learn to lead is ourselves. So this is me, inviting you to answer the questions, to speak the truth, to lead well, and to become strong and courageous.”

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So that is my invitation to you as you read the book, and hopefully as we have conversations on the podcast this season. This podcast will follow the passion and the desired alignment of the book by offering an invitation to share, by encouraging us to celebrate how God is shaping us through our stories, and that’s why I decided to name the theme for season one: Our Stories.

 

As I share my story, and as I share the story of Moses and the exodus narrative, I’m inviting people to the table to share their stories. By sharing our stories, we will all grow and we will all be changed.

 

I have some special guests joining me this season—some of them you may know and some of them will be new to you, but they are quite personal to my story and experience—and I’m excited to introduce you to them in this series.

 

Our discussions will follow the outline of the book: considering the FORMATION of Our Stories, the HISTORY of Our Stories, Our Stories in the WILDERNESS, and Our REDEMPTION Stories.

 

So I invite you to join us this season. We will be publishing the podcast on Thursdays, and they’re going to syndicate on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube. I’m also going to post a summary transcript of each podcast on my blog as our “Coffee Talk” on Thursdays.

 

I invite you to comment and join the conversation using the #ASojournersTruth hashtag as my guests may want to continue the conversation with you as well. I want to thank my publisher, InterVarsity Press, for partnering with me in this effort of writing the book, understanding the importance of the contents of the book, and also the importance of my voice and the message that God wanted to communicate through my voice. I thank them for encouraging all of us to #ReadWomen and elevate the voices of people of color.

 

You can pre-order A Sojourner’s Truth right now! The book officially releases on October 9, 2018! It will be available everywhere books are sold. I want to always encourage you to support your local bookstores because I don’t want to live in a world where we cannot visit bookstores.

 

Together, I promise you that we’re going to share our stories, we’re going to speak the truth, we’re going to encourage each other to live free and courageously!

 

I think we’re gonna laugh a lot, and I hope we also have a lot of fun!

 

You can also connect with me through my website at www.NatashaSRobinson.com.  You can follow me on: Facebook (Don’t miss the news – “Like” and click “Following” to “See First”), Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. I will leave you with this quote from the book: “The first person each of us must learn to lead is ourselves.”

 

Until next time, “Tell the truth people!”

Do you have something to die for?

Our country has spent the past few days mourning the deaths of Aretha Frankin, The Queen of Soul, and Senator John McCain, the Maverick.

It is befitting during times of mourning that we ponder the inescapable question:

Do I have something to die for?

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This year marks the 50-year anniversary of the assassination of preacher and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although this man is most known for his dream—the one he delivered to approximately 250,000 people, the dream that continues to live as a breathing document of hope today—the speech that best captures his life and ministry was given on the night before he was slain. It was titled “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” and in it he stated, “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

In his sermon “The Drum Major Instinct,” given at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, he told hearers the way he wanted to be remembered. He wanted people to know that he tried to give his life serving others, loving others, being right about the violence of war, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting the imprisoned. Living an other-centered life is why his words still resonate with us 50 years later.

Continue reading at Outreach Magazine.