TGC19 Interview | Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor | Word First

my name is Melissa Krueger and I work as our director of women's content and one thing that I always find so exciting when I work for tgc is that this material that we produce doesn't just stay in the States it goes all over the world and it gets to bless people in nation after nation and so I'm thankful to get to help develop some of that content specifically for women and one thing that has just been so great is that we have such a great team of women that we all work together to develop that content and so I am here actually today with one of my good friends Courtney doctor we work together in a variety of ways and so I'm here and I'm going to ask her can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for tgc I would love to I live in st. Louis so if you're a Cardinals fan go cards.i we moved to st. Louis in 2010 my husband and I went to seminary at covenant seminary and then we stayed in st. Louis we got hired at a church and so we stayed we have four children we have two married and two still in college and we have our one and only grandson and our universe kind of revolves around him a little bit right now he's very cute check out her Instagram page very cute he is very cute and the big news is that I have permission to share we have three more coming this summer so our oldest son and his wife are having twins and then our second son and his wife are having their first one and they're finding out the gender tomorrow so I may have to hop back up here and let you all know what it is I know what I think it is but I would I can't say I can't say and then 40g see I get to do a couple different things I get to help tailor turkey in ten with the women's training network which is a new initiative it's a global initiative that the Gospel Coalition is doing where we go into local churches or seminaries and offer events to help and equip women to use the scripture as well so we have several events well we just did one in Charlotte and Melissa and I were able to teach together but we have another one coming up in a few weeks in Portland Oregon and then at the end of June in Austin Texas the end of September in Philadelphia the first of November in Sacramento and we're in the process of getting our 2020 locations set now so if you want more information about that go to the website the Gospel Coalition org and look for the women's training Network you can sign up for our newsletter you can be updated on when registration will go open for some of our different events and then I get to help you with the TG CW 20 conference and I think we have a big announcement coming up right here right now right to everybody who's listening in and tuning in today you all are the first people to get to hear what we're going to be studying so this conference has a ton of people here that we are all milling around right now that you get to hear and we are hoping that in June of 2020 that you will come in join us for T G C W xx we are going to be studying the book of James which we are super excited about it's going to be the theme of steadfast faithfully living the word of truth and so what I love about the book of James is that it covers so much not just how our faith comes to us but how we steadfastly live our faith in the midst of a world that really is very changing it's variable it's always switching and everything seems to be changing just rapidly even in culture and so we're gonna be looking at how our God is steadfast and how he produces steadfast faith in us and so it's really exciting that we're going to be studying that and you all are the first to get to hear it here today and so we're super excited we will have over 50 workshops where you can come and be trained to go back into your local church in a variety of ways on a variety of topics but we'll also have plenary topics all on the book of James and so we will be studying those but we have a really special announcement to tell you about one thing that we're gonna do for this conference and this is the first time we've done this and Cortney is working on this she is preparing a Bible study on the book of James that will actually come out before the conference can you tell us a little bit about it it's super exciting it is super exciting so I just turned in chapter 2 before I came here really good well that's kind a friend would say that and I've started chapter 3 but the Bible study the way we've structured it is 2 it will be 7 weeks of study 7 chapters of study and that's because it will go along with the keynote sessions of our of our speakers so what it means is you can grab a group of friends and do the study before you come to the conference and then hear our speakers having already spent the time in the book of James or you can come you can grab a group of friends come to the conference take the study home and do it with a group of friends at home and use the videos of our keynote teachers which we have some really exciting ones lined up use those videos as your teaching videos if you want so you can have some of your very favorite bible teachers in your living room so we're we're really excited we love your prayers for the project and be looking for that to be available about the time registration goes open so it's a wonderful resource that you can use and what I love about it is you can prepare your own heart for the conference because I know for me when I've studied a book in depth and then I come in here teaching on it it's even that much more impactful and so you're going to be able to do that but then you can take it back to your own community and share with others and be equipped to teach others the book of James so that's what we're hoping to do and I'm really excited to get to work with Courtney well she's really doing all the work and I'm getting to enjoy her work and so will you so that's a wonderful thing Courtney and I also last year got to work on a book called identity theft together one thing we have found just as we look around our culture it's so hard sometimes I think we all get lost in Who am I it's this question that we're all asking ourselves and the world wants to define us by what we do by maybe our marital status maybe how many grandchildren we have all these ways that we tend to define ourselves and so we wanted to kind of strip it back and say Who am I in Christ and we had a group of wonderful group of women riding all the different chapters and I loved your chapter Courtney's chapter was on the fact that we are children of God and I know for most of us we can really feel a lot of times not like children but like orphans and that we've got to get ourselves good enough for God to want to adopt us and so can you just share a little bit about what you wrote about and what you learned about as you wrote that chapter on being a child of God yeah it was such a privilege to write that chapter because it forced me to soak in those deep truths that are really their their bedrock foundational truths to our identity in Christ understanding that the Lord has adopted us that the Lord has made us his children that we have been born again it is it is it is what provides us the safety and the rest that we so desperately need as children and so understanding that we have a good good father who loves us he is he's a perfect father he's the best possible father and so he does everything that a good father should he provides he protects he he loves he delights in and he longs to spend time with us and and so understanding that that is so foundational I mean it's what caused John Wright to burst forth and behold what manner of love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God and it is an astounding truth it's something that that should have found us and it should should cause us to wonder but then to rest deeply and so it was a privilege to write on that chapter let me ask you as you've ministered with women in various context how have you seen them like what are some of the signs that one I have a really wrong view of my father or that I'm kind of living like an orphan how do you see that manifests itself in women as they're going about their Christian walk that's a great question I think that we as we wrote that book one of the one of the frameworks that we used for writing it was to also look at what are the lies before we could look at what the truth was we wanted to see what the lies are and the lies are that we are either illegitimate children or we are orphans were all alone we actually don't have him as our father or that were the the servant or the slave we haven't been made an heir yet and so I think all of those we they cause us to want to strive to earn to earn that sonship that is ours in Christ and so instead of living our Christian life out of this foundational truth that that we are so safe and we are so delighted in because we're in Christ the the firstborn son right the true son that it provides us this place of rest stop the striving we don't try to earn the Lord's love we don't try to secure the Lord's love but we rest deeply because we are loved I love that that's so helpful and we are gonna actually go right now to a video that will tell you a little more about identity theft so we hope that you will check it out because it is life-giving to live and the identity of who we are in Christ and so we look at all these different ways of who we are in Christ and how that frees us to live outside of the lies and live in the truth of the gospel