Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Arkansas Baptist of Women podcast. On this season we will talk about the beauty of belonging to a gospel centered, like minded community that shapes and encourages us to love God and to be present in our calling.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: We are excited to sit down with different women from all stages of life and hear what God is doing in their life in an area of ministry that God has called them to join us as we find encouragement in the work and presence of God as he is reflected through casual conversation around coffee and authenticity.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Hey Arkansas Baptist women. We are back again and today we are so excited to have Diane Nix with us, your co host, Morgan Fulcher and Hannah Gane.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hey guys.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:00:43] Speaker C: Hey.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yes, we have gotten to spend the last couple of hours with Diane and I think that you are just going to just enjoy just her self, really who she is, but also just the ministry that God has called her to. And she's got a fun personality. I wish you could see her right now. She just brings life into the room.
[00:01:06] Speaker C: Oh, you're sweet.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Yes. And so hopefully through just the questions that we ask and we set up, you are going to kind of catch a vision and drift of that.
And so she really is truly just a delight. So we're going to kick this off. Are you ready?
[00:01:22] Speaker C: We're ready.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: We're ready. I'm ready.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Okay, so tell us just about yourself, about your family.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Hmm. That in and of itself is a loaded question.
So I have been married for 41 years. We say 39 of the happiest years because the first two years we tried to kill each other.
We're both firstborn children, very type A, strong leaders.
And we got married and I was not very far along in my walk with the Lord. In fact, I will jokingly say sometimes when I'm doing retreats that I, if God had called me home, I might have smelt like smoke when I got there.
Now, for all of those listening, I know that's not theologically accurate, but what I mean by that is that I still had a lot. I was very young in the Lord and Preston loved Jesus and had been following the Lord for a long time. 27 years. Well, really for about 10 years before he met me and was already called into ministry. And so we met and married in Irving, Texas and began life. We had our first church in Fort Worth and now we were going to have kids and live happily ever after. And as God would have it, it would take us 12 years to have our first viable pregnanc and then actually 11 years, first viable pregnancy and Hannah Grace would die right before she was born. And then about 10 months later, we ended up in a new church. And I shared my infertility journey and just what had been told me. And the Lord had those women. There were 200 women present that day, and they began to pray that God would open my womb. And our first retreat, I announced I was pregnant with our Rebecca Elizabeth, who is 29 today. And then the day that I gave birth to my little Hannah Grace, the Lord, the next daily Bible reading for Preston was, he makes the barren woman to abide in the house a joyful mother of children.
And he said, God, this is either a promise or. Or you're a cruel God. And because I know that you're not a cruel God, I'm going to take this as a promise.
So when I had Rebecca, unbeknownst to me, my husband said, but God, you said, a joyful mother of children.
And lo and behold, about 18 months later, Rachel Abigail came along at 3 pounds and 12 ounces, and she is 27 and lives in California. Rebecca is 29, married. I think they're about to celebrate their seventh or eighth year of marriage, and they live in Greenville, South Carolina, or Greer, South Carolina. And then in between those times, I was given the distinct privilege of having a young woman at 15 from Warsaw, Poland, come and live with us to grow spiritually. And she is now 42. And I think she's 42. Please forgive me, Kasha, if you hear this, and I called you wrong age, but she is married and one of our AMB missionaries and brought us Slovakia and married one of my husband's preacher boys from New Orleans seminary. And they have two kids, Samuel, and we call her Jaylee Love. Their youngest daughter is Jaylee, and they.
We don't get to see them very often in public, but. Or in person because of the distance between us. But we got to see them last Christmas and that was really special. So.
So that's a little bit about who we are. That was a long story. But you have to understand, I'm a much older parent. Most everybody that was having children were already fully down there. And I had my first live birth at 36 and 38.
So I'm an older mom. It's going to be.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: But you don't feel like it. I wish they could see you. Yes.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, you're sweet to say that.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: So much fun and so much joy.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: Well, you're sweet to say that. Thank you very much. I just think that's the joy of The Lord, you know, for what he has done for me and what I get to do for him.
That's cool.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Which, that even kind of brings us to our next question. So kind of a twofold. So one, when was your call to ministry? And then two, like, who has had a profound effect, like, on pulling out leadership giftings in you and identifying those for you?
[00:06:12] Speaker C: So my call to ministry, I did not come from a faith family.
So when, you know, I alluded that I was really young in the Lord when we married. And this podcast is not long enough for part of this of my story, but the reality is I got saved in a very dramatic fashion and ended up getting a job from. I was living in Missouri, Poplar Bluff, Missouri, at the time when I came to know the Lord and came driving into Irving, Texas, and joined this church that was larger than any town I'd ever lived in in my life. They were running over 1200 at the time. And my husband would come as the youth pastor there and would be John the Baptist. And I fell in love with him just in a few short months. But I knew he would never love anyone like me because he was a really holy man. And I didn't have that kind of background. But as God would have it, during that time, I was just like a sponge.
I was taking every study course I could take. I was doing all kinds of ministry, evangelism training. I mean, we're at an evangelism conference I did back then. It was called, I think it was CWT Continuous Training.
And I went on my first mission trip. And right before all of that happened, it was in April, spring of a year. And I think a long time ago, I was going to tell you a year, but it's 1981, I think, and I surrendered to a call of ministry. And right after that, and I remember going down that morning just going, I don't even know what this is. I just feel like I'm supposed to say, whatever you want me to do, I'll do, Lord. And so I went down in this church and I made that declaration. They presented me before the people, and then shortly thereafter went on my very first foreign mission trip and had been through CWT. And while I was on the plane, 27,000ft in the air, I heard God's voice for the first time in my life. Now, what I need to tell those listening. Some people say that you cannot hear the voice of God. God only speaks through His Word. And the reality is that is true. He primarily speaks through his word. But Adrian Rogers used To say, when asked, does God have an audible voice or do you hear the audible voice of God? His answer was, no, it's not just an audible voice. It's louder than that. So on this plane trip, I was up in the air and I was praying. It was the first time to fly. Now I'm flying 27,000ft to Seoul, Korea to share the gospel. That was the whole purpose of the. Of the mission trip, was to share the gospel.
It wasn't servant evangelism. It was, you're going to share the gospel.
And I felt God say to me, I would like for you to be a ministry wife. And I told him, no, I would do anything in the world besides be a ministry wife. Because they were strange and odd and weird.
But on that trip, I surrendered. My pastor's wife was on that trip. And I went up and sat down next to her and surrendered to the call of minist and to the call of being a ministry wife. And it just set things in motion. And here we are today, 41 years later.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: That's so cool.
Speaking of that, kind of tell us a little bit about the ministry that you do lead and just kind of what that looks like every single week or day to day for you.
[00:09:58] Speaker C: So I don't think I answered the question about what pulled me out of leadership gifting. And so I would have to say that my husband did a lot of that. And then there were. There were certain women that God just had placed in my life through those formative years in the big beginning. And one of them was a woman that I think some of your listeners will know. And her name is Donna Gaines. And Donna Gaines is the wife of Steve Gaines. And Steve and Preston were a PhD work together. And Donna and I began to just have a friendship. And she challenged me. She saw in me things that I didn't see myself. And she would just. She challenged me in my walk with Christ. She challenged me in my. And she unofficially mentored me. And then God would send some other women to me. And about 25 years ago, she and I were sitting at the Southern Baptist Convention going, why is there not something for women? On Monday morning when we were at the pastors conference, long story short, we began to do some research on that. We ended up doing our first Monday morning session. Out of that came the fact that I said, we need to stay connected to these women throughout the year. And when I would try to get my Southern Baptist women to help me, well, they just, they were all busy doing their own things. And finally one day The Lord said to me, diane, this is not just about your denomination. You need sheep or sheep, and it doesn't matter what you put on the outside of the church. So my ministry is contagiousjoyforhim.com where I take care and give a place of safety and quiet and a place, a selah, a breath, just a pause for our ministry wives who are serving in ministry alongside of their husbands. And that's the primary thing I've been doing for the last several years. We do podcasts, do weekly blog posts, we host conferences, coffee conferences where we're doing basically like little cohorts. And then we have coffee chats with Diane Nix.
And the biggest thing we do is give them free retreats, which is three days and three nights, six to eight women at a time, free to them. They do not lift a finger. We've served them continuously for three days to give them connection with the Father, connection with other like minded women. And our goal is, my goal is that we would connect them to the Father with almost a spiritual renewal. And we bless their socks off with swag and send them home hopefully renewed and connected with other like minded women with tools to stay connected to that group so that they have a community of support.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: That's really cool.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: That is awesome. That's so good.
It seems like you've been doing this for some time.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: Yeah, about 18 years now. 2007.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Wow, that's incredible. That is awesome. So in ministry obviously is ever changing. You're meeting different women every single year at these ministry retreats to different faces.
But God's always pushing us through new doors and into new seasons. And so what would you say that like goals right now that you are pursuing?
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Wow. The goals that I'm. First of all, I have a personal goal is that I put on the back burner my own education years ago. And so I went back to school two years ago. That's great. What is awesome, I'm gonna do a ministry degree.
I don't have a bachelor's, but I had 80 hours toward that bachelor's. So I am hopeful, I'm hopeful that I will graduate with my bachelor's in December. And the other hope would be and goal is that a year in December, a year from this date and that I will graduate with hopefully 18 hours toward my master's. And I don't know if I'll get my master's but at that level I could possibly teach at a college level women's ministry. So the goal will be minor. And so that's personally goal Ministerially, at our age, in the last two and a half years, I've put over 96,000 miles on a vehicle.
So I go everywhere and travel to women to do the retreat. So our goal will be. And so if anyone out there knows about anything like this, we need a house, about six to seven bedrooms. And we want to bring women to us. And most of the time travel minimally, but bring. So we want to buy some property. We have an idea about where we want it to be because we want to be closer to kids as we have grandchildren and stuff like that. But ministerial goal, that would be it. And then the other thing we want to add to that component, we've done one of these. Two of one or two of these. We are going to add a component of free ministry marriage retreats, where we are ministering to the marriage couple, ministry couple and being able to. So that's a lot of goals. So personally and professionally, ministerially, that's what we're working on right now.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's incredible. And we know that we walk by faith and not by sight. And so how do you see yourself personally growing in faith right now as you've set these goals before you? And how is the Lord kind of growing you to trust him and your dependency?
[00:15:30] Speaker C: Well, when we established the ministry, God told me that I was to do this ministry free of charge. And he actually said to me, I took on a job. I didn't ask him about it. I didn't pray about. I was trying to help him out with the ministry and my personal. And literally, I did not pray about it. After he had told me what to do, I said, okay, well, then I need to get a job. And the ministry was suffering because I was working a secular job trying to do the ministry call that he had called for me to do. And I wasn't doing a good job at it. And one particular day I was driving down the road and I heard he had already told me to do these retreats and I had told him no.
And in fact, I'd been telling him no for some time at that point. And the long, the short version is I felt like he met me in the car and said, you're going to do your first retreat at this particular place, and if you do not do, you're in direct rebellion of me. I met. I called a friend and she met me at the place that I felt like the Lord had said that her husband didn't know the Lord. Anyway, long story short, she said, I think we can do this retreat in the Timeframe you want, but I want you to go. You and Preston go to dinner with my husband and I. And so I said, okay. So I'm thinking that she wants us. I don't know what's going on. Well, we had just gotten our nonprofit status, and at the end of our dinner, we had set up our website. He slides a blank piece of paper. What I thought was a blank piece of paper. It turns out it was our first PayPal receipt for $10,000 for the ministry.
And the Lord said, I told you to walk by faith, and I will supply everything you need to do the ministry. I've called you to do.
So where I am right now is that the goals are bigger, the money is larger, and yet, even in recent days, I've tested the Lord, and, no, we shouldn't always test the Lord. In this time in my life, I should just go, okay, Lord.
But we sometimes, when it's so much bigger than we can see with our eyes, it is a challenge for all of us to walk by faith. And yet, time after time after time, when I just trust him, he will supply $10,000 here, $15,000 here, or you can support the ministry by donating $20 a month. I mean, you know, the Lord just continues to bless us with that. And so I'm being challenged right now. Just my word this year is delight.
He delights in us. He delights in ordering the steps of a righteous person. That word in the Hebrew means it makes him laugh, causes him to have laughter.
He delights in the steps of a righteous woman. And so for you and I, the challenge is that we just learn to walk by faith and allow him to delight in taking care of our needs.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: That's good. That is so good.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: And along with that, like, I think there's things that the Lord teaches us and, like, helps grow in us. But then I think also, like, like you said, that's your word for the year. I think I can look back in different seasons, and it's like, oh, but I also learned something about myself in this season. Absolutely. So, like, what do you feel like the Lord is teaching you about yourself recently, too, in all of this?
[00:19:15] Speaker C: Well, in all of this, I think that if we're not careful, this will be true transparency for you. I just wrote about this in a blog post, and so I can freely share it here. Toward the end of the last year and tomorrow, I will speak a little bit about this. The Lord asked me in my prayer time, do you love me or do you love the work of the ministry? I've called you to do.
I just was like, lord, yeah, I love you. Really. It was as if the Lord just, are you sure? And I think what happens with us if we're not careful?
And for me, the challenge is, do I love him more than I love the ministry, the work of the ministry, do I love him more?
And the answer to that is readily. We should say it's like the Sunday school answer that we all know and ask, what's the answer, Jesus?
Well, for me it is, do you really love me? And what I can tell you is, I love Him.
He plucked me out of my family of origin.
He set my feet on a high place.
He allows me to serve Him.
He scares me to death.
But I love serving the women that God puts in my life.
And I've already met some women that have been able to share their story while I'm here already just in the hours that I've been.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's beautiful. I think every time that I was around someone and they knew that Diane was coming and that they knew of you, and they said, I cannot wait for you to meet her. They said that she is a woman of prayer. And so I think about that as someone that you've been discipled in prayer, you've discipled other women, obviously at these retreats just to just invite the presence of God, just to take residence just among them and with them as they fill themselves up, as they're renewed. But is there another. What spiritual discipline do you find God stretching you in? Or is it. Is it still just this deep well of prayer?
[00:21:43] Speaker C: I think that it is the deep well of prayer because God is challenging me that any of us can. Oftentimes I'll say to women that when we ask. I just said it. This weekend I taught a small women's conference in Georgia. And I said to the women, what happens to us is we get so rote in our prayer lives and we're so hurried as women to get it all done. You know, 57% of pastors, wives work outside of their home, a 30 to 40 hour work week. In addition to that, they're raising children. In addition to that, they're given 20 plus hours a week in volunteer service to the church. And in addition to that, they're meeting the needs of their husband. So what ends up happening is we in our prayer life, they become impotent, they get really stagnant, they get really rote.
The other thing that happens to us in our prayer life, and so we have to be Very intentional. We need to learn how to be very intentional and say, not, father, forgive me of my sin. Yes, he's already forgiven you of your sin. But how about we say, God, what is it that I'm sinning against you in? What is the area where I'm just turning a blind eye? Or we don't need to give God permission, but we submit to the movement of the Holy Spirit. And I'll use the terminology giving God permission. But we might say, lord, I surrender this area. Search me and know me. Make it known to me. The other thing that God is challenging me with.
And I'd become slack in this. And this is a new company or a company that some. Some of you might be interested in. It's dwell differently. And it is a temporary tattoo that you put on, and it has a verse for the month. And it's the month. It's just the first letter of every word in the verse. And you don't have to do the tab to maybe some of you have. No, I get what scripture says about that because it also has. I know that, and I understand that. So I don't want to get anybody in trouble here or get myself in trouble. But the reality is I needed some help to help jog my memory. So just like a little kid, sometimes I'll put this little temporary tattoo that's going to help me memorize this passage of scripture. Or if I don't want to do the tattoo, they come with a little keychain that has the verse, a little. Just a little plastic reminder of the verse with the same initials. And I put it on my keychain. And then they come with a disciple or a devotional card that talks about the verse and why you want to memorize it. So what God's challenging me right now in this discipline is going back to hiding God's word in my life. Because at. At my age, I'm going to be 65 this year. Don't tell anybody, but I wouldn't have known. You're sweet to say that, but I can tell right here.
Okay. And I just touched my cheeks, if you didn't know.
I need a facelift anyway. No.
So I realized in the last eight months that there were a lot of verses that I've just had as part of my life for a very, very long time. But God wants me to go deeper, even at this age. And I need to be learning scripture until the day I can't take another breath until I step into his presence. I need to be hiding his word in my heart. So I was looking for a different way. This is just one of many resources or tools that I could take on myself and just be able to hide God's word in my heart. Memorizing it and. And making it a part of me trying to do. That's one of the reasons I went back to school, is creating new synapses and brain waves to challenge myself to stay fresh and alert in the things of God.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Oh, that's wonderful. That's beautiful. Okay, so we are fixing to wrap this up. How can we pray for you? I think I've got so much that we can be praying for you because obviously God is pushing you into this, just into a season of growing and learning.
But I think as he imparts things to you, it's going to be a blessing to others.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: And so tomorrow's going to be a new lesson that I've taught two times, basically from some of the things that I've gleaned in the last six or eight months. And so one of the ways that you can pray for our ministry is financial stability.
There is money out there, so we'll be applying for more grants.
We really. Our goal is to have at least 100 donors at $100 a month, because then our ministry will almost. Our functional ministry of renting houses or paying for a house will basically be paid for if we have that. So you could pray for that. Pray for the house we're supposed to be in.
Pray for the women that are going to come and the next.
Starting at the end of February through mid April. We have six retreats, and they are full.
I have two or three spaces, so we're looking at maybe 50 women, but they're small and intimate on purpose. But you could be praying for those women and pray that I find the house. I just found out the house that I normally rent is not available to me, so I'm scrambling to find the house that will accommodate all of us. But. But, you know, the word scramble is really not a good word because the reality is God in this word delight. All right, God, this caught me off guard, but it did not catch you off guard. So I'm going to trust you and let you lead me to just the right place that you want for these women to meet together.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: That's good. That is good. Okay. Listen, Diane, it has been such a joy having you on here and getting to hear just your story, years of ministry, but also just the way that God is cultivating just a new desire for him and you is just such a blessing to Us to Hannah and I. Okay, let me pray for you, and then we will wrap this up.
[00:28:08] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Yes, Father, we just come before you and we are just grateful that we can enter into your presence, that we can just intercede on behalf of one another. God, the work that you have called Diane to is just a beautiful, deep work as she ministers to other ministry wives. We know just the fresh anointing that you want to place on their life as they minister in their home, in their church, in their community. And so, God, we just pray favor over her ministry. We pray for financial stability, God, we pray for the people that she is going to invite into those spaces, that they would be blessed, that they would be encouraged. Most importantly, that they would find just a tent of meeting with you.
God, we just again, just thank you for what new life that you're calling her into, just with school and other goals that she's trying to pursue.
What a breath of fresh air, getting to hear just all that you're doing within her. God, I pray that you would just meet her just with your love, God, that you would wrap your arms around her and that as she walks with you, just this delight that she knows that you have and are imparting to her, that she would just find it to be full. And we pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
[00:29:27] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Yes. Okay, well, we will see you tomorrow.
[00:29:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: And then we cannot wait for the women up there to get to meet you.
[00:29:37] Speaker C: Can't wait.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Yes. And tell our listeners, too, they can also find you on podcast chat.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: Sure. Yes. So you can find me in our blog post on Contagious Joy, the number four contagiousjoyforhim.com and on that website, you're gonna be able to find our podcast, which is Coffee Chats with Diane Nix. And it is everywhere. Anything Spotify, anywhere you find podcasts, you can find that.
And then we just launched a YouTube channel, which is contagiousjoyforhim.com and you can find our shorts and our reels there. And then our Instagram handle, Contagious Joy for him, it might be. Yeah, I think it is Contagious Joy for him. So you can catch all of that. And the links to all of those other things are on both our Facebook and our Contagious Joy for Him Instagram. So we're in all the places.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Perfect. You will not be fun. Yes, that's good. Okay. All right. Well, we've enjoyed it.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: Thank you. I have to.
